Testing wraps up for first Fermilab-designed cryomodule for PIP-II accelerator

A Fermilab team has completed tests for a crucial superconducting segment for the PIP-II particle accelerator, the future heart of the Fermilab accelerator chain. The segment, called a cryomodule, will be one of many, but this is the first to be fully designed, assembled and tested at Fermilab. It represents a journey of technical challenges and opportunities for innovation in superconducting accelerator technology.

Coffea speeds up particle physics data analysis

The prodigious amount of data produced at the Large Hadron Collider presents a major challenge for data analysis. Coffea, a Python package developed by Fermilab researchers, speeds up computation and helps scientists work more efficiently. Around a dozen international LHC research groups now use Coffea, which draws on big data techniques used outside physics.

Random twists of place: How quiet is quantum space-time at the Planck scale?

Fermilab scientist and University of Chicago professor of astronomy and astrophysics Craig Hogan gives perspective on how the Holometer program aimed at a tiny scale — the Planck length — to help answer one of the universe’s most basic questions: Why does everything appear to happen at definite times and places? He contextualizes the results and offers optimism for future researchers.

HL-LHC Accelerator Upgrade Project receives approval to move full-speed-ahead from Department of Energy

The U.S. DOE has given the U.S. High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider Accelerator Upgrade Project approval to move full-speed-ahead in building and delivering components for the HL-LHC, specifically, cutting-edge magnets and accelerator cavities that will enable more rapid-fire collisions at the collider.

University of Chicago’s Polsky Center Launches New Deep Tech Accelerator

The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago has launched the Compass, a first-of-its-kind deep tech accelerator program for early-stage startups and technologies created by researchers at the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Major upgrade to Fermilab accelerator complex gets green light

The U.S. Department of Energy has formally approved the scope, schedule and cost of the PIP-II project at Fermilab. The PIP-II accelerator will become the heart of Fermilab’s upgraded accelerator complex, delivering more powerful proton beams to the lab’s experiments and enabling deeper probes of the fundamental constituents of the universe.

Fermilab and partners achieve sustained, high-fidelity quantum teleportation

A joint team of researchers at Fermilab and partner institutions have achieved quantum teleportation, teleporting information over a distance of 44 kilometers. The remarkable achievement supports the premise that scientists and engineers can build a workable and high-fidelity quantum network using practical devices.

One minute with Kate Sienkiewicz, LBNF Near Site Conventional Facilities project manager

From working at the CIA to designing science facilities at Fermilab, Kate Sienkiewicz enjoys tackling complex problems. Currently, she oversees the team tasked with designing and building conventional facilities at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility near site for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment — all with the overarching goal of understanding the universe.

Contract awarded for the excavation of gigantic caverns for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

This month, Thyssen Mining Inc. was awarded the contract to excavate the gigantic caverns for Fermilab’s Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility. Excavation crews will drill, blast and remove approximately 800,000 tons of rock to create the underground space for LBNF. When complete, the facility will house the enormous particle detector for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab.

One step closer: Mu2e reaches milestone in construction of novel experiment

Magnets play a key role in looking for the direct transformation of muons into electrons, a theorized phenomenon that Fermilab’s Mu2e experiment will hunt for when it comes online in 2023. In an important milestone, seven essential magnets have passed testing and been accepted for the construction of the experiment.

Fermilab is partner in Quantum Science Center based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Fermilab plays a key role in the Quantum Science Center, led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The center unites that Oak Ridge’s powerhouse capabilities in supercomputing and materials science with Fermilab’s world-class high-energy physics instrumentation and measurement expertise and facilities. Drawing on their experience building and operating experiments in cosmology and particle physics and in quantum information science, the Fermilab team is engaging in QSC efforts to develop novel, advanced quantum technologies.

NOvA turns its eyes to the skies

The NOvA experiment, best known for its measurements of neutrino oscillations using particle beams from Fermilab accelerators, has been turning its attention to measurements of cosmic phenomena. In a series of results, NOvA reports on neutrinos from supernovae, gravitational-wave events from black hole mergers, muons from cosmic rays, and its search for the elusive monopole.

ICEBERG tests future neutrino detector systems with ‘beautiful’ results

Scientists are testing the components and systems for the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab, with other liquid-argon particle detectors. One such detector is ICEBERG, which is over 10,000 times smaller than DUNE will be. ICEBERG’s measurements are providing insight for future neutrino experiments.

Lead Lab Selected for Next-Generation Cosmic Microwave Background Experiment

The largest collaborative undertaking yet to explore the relic light emitted by the infant universe has taken a step forward with the U.S. DOE’s selection of Berkeley Lab to lead the partnership of national labs, universities, and other institutions that are joined in the effort to carry out the DOE roles and responsibilities.

Fermilab to lead $115 million National Quantum Information Science Research Center to build revolutionary quantum computer with Rigetti Computing, Northwestern University, Ames Laboratory, NASA, INFN and additional partners

Fermilab has been selected to lead one of five national centers to bring about transformational advances in quantum information science as a part of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. The initiative provides the new Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center — based at Fermilab and comprising 20 partner institutions — $115 million over five years with the goal of building and deploying a beyond-state-of-the-art quantum computer based on superconducting technologies. The center will also develop new quantum sensors, which could lead to the discovery of the nature of dark matter and other elusive subatomic particles.

Searching for supernova neutrinos with DUNE

The international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment collaboration has published a paper about its capability for performing supernova physics. It details the kind of activity DUNE expects in the detector during a supernova burst, how DUNE will know once a supernova occurs and what physics DUNE will extract from the neutrinos. DUNE’s unique strength is its sensitivity to a particular type of neutrino called the electron neutrino, which will provide scientists with supernova data not available from any other experiment.

Dark Energy Survey census of the smallest galaxies hones the search for dark matter

Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey have used observations of the smallest known galaxies to better understand dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe. The smallest galaxies can contain hundreds to thousands of times more dark matter than normal visible matter, making them ideal laboratories for studying this mysterious substance. By performing a rigorous census of small galaxies surrounding our Milky Way, scientists on the Dark Energy Survey have been able to constrain the fundamental particle physics that governs dark matter.

Robert Ainsworth awarded $2.5 million to improve particle beams for high-intensity experiments

Fermilab scientist Robert Ainsworth has won a $2.5 million Department of Energy Early Career Research Award to study different ways of ensuring stability in high-intensity proton beams. By studying how certain types of beam instabilities emerge and evolve under different conditions, his team can help sharpen scientists’ methods for correcting them or avoiding them to begin with.

DUNE collaboration finalizes the blueprint for the ultimate neutrino detector

The publication of the Technical Design Report is a major milestone for the construction of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, an international mega-science project hosted by Fermilab. It lays out in great detail the scientific goals as well as the technical components of the gigantic particle detectors of the experiment.